ACRI and HaMoked in urgent appeal: Allow seriously ill residents of Kfar Aqab to pass through a less-congested checkpoint

On June 17, 2025, ACRI and HaMoked contacted the commander of the Jerusalem Envelope Border Police with the demand to allow seriously ill patients who are residents of Kfar Aqab to access the rest of Jerusalem via the A-Jib checkpoint in order to receive vital medical care in the city. Kafr Aqab is one of the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem that are cut off from the rest of the city by the Separation Barrier. Prior to the October 2023 war, residents would access the rest of the city to conduct their daily lives via the Qalandiya or Hizma checkpoints. An additional checkpoint, the Jaba checkpoint, was established at the beginning of the war and encloses the neighborhood. These checkpoints are extremely congested, and crossing them takes a long time – sometimes hours, and they are also sometimes closed without warning.

In the letter, the organizations asked the local border police commander to exercise his authority to allow passage through a different Barrier checkpoint, Al-Jib. Al Jib is open 24/7 and allows for quick passage into the rest of city, but it is only available for those who have received special approval and whose names appear in a dedicated list, among them physicians and educators who work in Jerusalem, Hebrew University students, and other Palestinians who receive special approval.

The organizations demanded that seriously ill residents of Kafr Aqab who need urgent and frequent treatment at hospitals in Jerusalem be allowed to pass through this checkpoint. This request followed repeated appeals submitted from February 2025 regarding two children, ages eight and six, who suffer from end-stage kidney failure. Although these requests were backed by medical approvals and the necessary documentation, and despite repeated reminders, only in early June 2025 did the Jerusalem Envelope Command respond briefly to the effect that “the family ... does not meet the required criteria.”

In the current letter, the organizations argued that the refusal to allow seriously ill patients to pass through the Al-Jib checkpoint was arbitrary, unreasonable, and violated the fundamental rights of residents to health, equality, and dignity. It was also argued that this refusal contravened the State’s commitments to the High Court of Justice, as well as the previous Jerusalem Envelope Border Police commander's assurance to allow patients to pass through the checkpoint. The organizations demanded, therefore, that an immediate passage permit be granted for the Al-Jib checkpoint for the said two children, as well as more generally for seriously ill patients, and that similar future requests be answered promptly and in the affirmative.